yet another financial kick in the junk

We are working with our bishop to get our debts paid off and our family back on a viable budget. Certain things are going to happen, such as me getting a second job (went out and pounded the pavement yesterday for that), and other expenses are going to have to be cut. Like what, I don't know... we don't have any unnecessary expenses.

Anyway, today I got my annual bonus from work -- a sizeable sum that would have paid off two credit cards. We were pretty excited about it, and looking forward to getting a couple of monkeys off our back.

Turns out the bonus is taxed. I was expecting that, but since I'm in such a low tax bracket it wouldn't make that much of a difference. WRONG. Buried in the tax code, under "supplemental income", is a provision that requires employers to withhold a certain percentage of taxes from the bonus, regardless of the individual's tax status. Since I'm not officially exempt from taxes (I just don't have to pay all that much), I got a bunch of taxes withheld. Like, just over 40% of my bonus check after all was said and done.

Now, we can't even pay ONE card off, and I look like a complete schmuck since I have to renege on two promises with creditors that I've been fighting with for a few months now.

Yeah, life sucks. But at least I get to do something constructive about it.

I'm going to write my congressman about the stupid tax code, and request a refund of the interest I would have earned on the money, had I put it in a savings account rather than had it taxed. Since I'm going to get the taxes back at the end of the year anyway, this is just an interest-free loan to the government.

So, in short:

• Stupid government
• Stupid employers for not allowing me to apply for a partial refund of the taxes that were taken out. My last job would have let me do that.
• Stupid me for not asking ahead of time how much I should expect to be taken out.

Another thankless job I have

Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. - Matthew 5:25

Two nights ago the family decides to go to Target to get some baby stuff that we didn't get at the shower, but instead received a gift card for. As we are getting the kids out of the car, there is a sudden commotion between my wife (on the passenger side) and the driver of the car parked next to us. Apparently, there is a scratch and a small dent on the door of the other car that wasn't there before she went to Target. The driver claims that it was our door wedged up against her door as she pulled away that caused this scratch and dent. My wife gets into an argument with the lady, who gets a phone call and drives just outside of the parking lot on a side street to field it. We go into Target and talk about it, and I mention that I want to keep an eye outside for a second since the lady didn't drive completely away. Sure enough, she pulls up to our car again.

I ran outside and knocked on the lady's window. We're both pleading our cases to no avail. Granted, I didn't see anything happen because I was on the other side of the car, but I still have to stick up for my wife. It was in the middle of all this that I finally hit the proverbial wall. I apologize to the lady, who really is more indignant about being told that she didn't see what she saw than anything else, and explain to her what's been going on with our family for the past few weeks, and tell her that we've been under a lot of stress and nerves are a bit more frayed than usual and tempers are shorter than usual. The lady relates some of her story to me (she has a son in Iraq), and we talk about that. I sympathize with the stress she is under and with the undue stress of now having to drive home in Tucson traffic in addition to everything that just happened in the parking lot. We chuckle over that, I introduce myself and ask for her son's name, and tell her (sincerely) I hope her son comes home soon. She thanks me and says she's not going to write down our license plate number anymore, and drives off after bidding me good night.

In short: I went out there and literally let it all hang out emotionally over a SCRATCH IN SOMEONE'S PAINT, which would have caused serious problems as we are having some car issues right now, and it would have resulted in serious legal and financial troubles.

I return to the store, tell my wife what happened, and immediately get into trouble because she thinks I went out there and blamed her for the damage to the lady's car. Which is clearly not the case, but I can't argue that. In fact, when I did argue that, I got the same dismissal that I usually get when my wife claims I'm not making any effor to understand her.

Argh.

Me and my OCD

So yeah, I'll admit it. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder. It's not big by any means, I don't do counting, and I don't have to touch things in a certain order. BUT... I do have to be clean. Like, wash my hands after I touch each ingredient in the kitchen while preparing dinner clean. I know I didn't always have this. Here's an example from today:

I am feeding my son while my wife is working with the nurse who comes over periodically to check on him. Meanwhile, my daughter comes up to investigate, and starts dripping her bottle down my leg. Nothing serious, just a couple of drops, but it starts to bug me. So, my wife comes over and, instead of cleaning off my leg, SMEARS THE MILK ON MY LEG. She calls this, apparently, "cleaning it up." I am now reduced to sitting there literally BEGGING for a Kleenex so my leg can be clean, but she's too busy laughing at me. Finally, after about five minutes, she gets a Kleenex and wipes off my leg, proclaiming it a "waste of a Kleenex" because the milk was already dry.

I could sit here and justify why my leg still needed to be cleaned all day, but I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm going to just grumble a little bit on how my wife didn't take me seriously. OK, I'm done now.

It's strange, I think it has to do with a greasy feeling only, because today I was also working in the yard without gloves, and would have to pick up bits of grass and such to put in the trashcan. Didn't faze me one bit, although I did take a shower immediately after finishing, but that was normal: I was dripping with sweat.

Here are some of the things that happen to me to suggest that I have OCD:

• Have to wash hands after handling virtually every ingredient while preparing a meal -- not just the raw meats


• I check the door locks at least twice each night before going to bed, and at least once during the day


• Notwithstanding the door locks being checked, I will lay awake at night thinking I hear noises and being terrified that there is someone in my house who is going to harm my family or myself. This has nothing to do with the baby being home, or being a parent: I've felt this way since moving to Arizona.

As I've mentioned, although not on this blog, I don't really believe in taking medications for mental problems. I feel that the pharmeceutical industry is taking advantage of many "diagnoses" provided by doctors to come up with a "take a pill and solve your problems" solution for nearly every problem in life. I don't want our society to go in that direction.

I know that I am prone to bouts of depression as well, some more serious than others, but I believe that if I had made better life choices a few years ago (namely, not going into serious debt), I would be happier overall. Plus, I've had bouts with low self-esteem (my entire childhood), and although I thought I had that beat, it still surfaces from time to time. It's strange -- I'm a person that I know can have a good time when I'm just being myself, but I have a hard time being myself around my family. My friends, no problem. But just my family - including my wife - I have a hard time being myself around. It's strange, but I know that leads to a lot of "fight or flight" instinctual responses, as well as stages where I'm depressed. Go fig.

Anyway, I had to put this post away for a couple of hours, and a lot of stuff's happened since then. I'll write more tomorrow.

Life, the Universe, and Everything... or maybe just life.

We realized a few weeks ago that we are, to put it mildly, in dire financial straits. And that's putting it mildly! Anyway, over the past two weeks, we've been meeting with different leaders in the ward to help us get back on our feet. Our Bishop has been especially gracious with his time, taking about 5 hours over the past week or so to meet with us, sit down with all of our bills, and help us figure out exactly where the money coming in should go. He's also worked with the Relief Society president to get us some commodities from the Bishop's Storehouse which will get us through the next couple of weeks, as all of our money is earmarked to getting our delinquent payments caught back up. Members of the ward have also been bringing by dinner for us for the past week to help us stay as focused as possible on getting life into a routine around here.

Bishop's made some suggestions, like me getting a second job to cover the car payment(s) until we can sell one or both of them. I don't mind getting a second job, although obviously I won't be home that much if I'm working one. I'm thinking of expanding my bass lessons, or even teaching French to the one or two people in Arizona who might want to learn it. :-) I can do either one of those from home, which would be a good thing as it would keep me off the road and at home where I ideally would be if we were, you know, financially solvent.

Another option is to get a job nearby, at a place that I can walk to if absolutely necessary. That would mean something like Fry's, Golden Corral, or another fast-food restaurant on 22nd between Broadway and Alvernon. I seriously doubt that Beaver's would take me back, and besides, I probably wouldn't want to work there, seeing as how I've developed a lot professionally since then. I can, however, put up signs there and at Guitar Center advertising lessons.

So, some changes to the blog will come soon. I'm going to work on doing some bar graphs to fill up how much of each debt is paid off, to motivate me when I come here. I might start up a "teaching bass" blog as well, although to tie it in with the website that I would have to develop for the "school", that would be different. I don't want an e-mail address, plus two separate website addresses cluttering the bottom of my business cards, you know?

So, let's give the bass school a shot. You never know. And I feel the best about it, and I hope and pray that the Lord will bless me with students enough to be able to support my family.

In the meantime, I've got a budget to work out. Dave Barry wrote a few years ago that what his family was on wasn't strictly a budget, it was more of a modified version of the Bataan Death March. I can completely relate, as we are literally counting pennies to get where we need to go.

words I've learned recently

Here are two words that I've learned recently that have helped me understand a few things. They're both German, but I don't think that's a coincidence or anything like that.

bildungsroman - a novel which chronicles the story of a single individual's growth. For example, Ender's Game and its sequels are a series of bildungsroman.

Schadenfreude - no direct English translation, it means "taking pleasure in another's misfortune." I understand that one completely, and have a big problem with it, in the fact that I think that is what a lot of the humor in today's society is based on, and that's, as my daughter would say, "yucky."

another goal completed

Today, after a long struggle, I finally acheived something I've been working at for the previous few weeks: beat Minesweeper on expert level. It took me just over six minutes (6:04 to be exact), but I got it done without blowing myself up! I feel pretty good about it, although I know I can do better.

I know I should be working on other things, as I have a lot that I need to do, but this computer's still in Stephen's room, and I need to be quiet. Of course, Michelle just informed me that she can hear my typing in the living room. Oh well... later on the computer will be moved...

one for the family album

We're all home! And man, does it feel weird. It's definitely a lot more work...

another storm rolls through

And with it, I take another pretty picture...

Argh

I enjoy working from home, I really do... but if I have to wake up again to OMG TEH CHARMED ONES!!~!~~ one more morning, I think I'm going to scream. We had cable turned off because it was too expensive, but it was never "turned off" -- so now we get free cable, and TNT's "Primetime in the Daytime" is the devil.

Someone please save me.

Week 32 Results

Hey, cool... completely forgot yesterday morning to update the goals. I guess that's what a few weeks out of ahabit will get you. It's strange how much time it takes to get into a hablit, but falling out of it is a lot easier and faster.

1. I did read all the scriptures I wanted to this week, and some more!


2. Yep.


3. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA... haven't had time. That's on our list though, somewhere. Maybe tonight we'll get that done.


4. Done. It's a sad state of affairs.


5. There are things out there, but this just got bumped waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down on the priority list.

And that's about it. Got some other things done, as well... I realized I've just been sitting on my list of things to do that I made before Michelle went to Phoenix, and if I was bored or directionless, I could always pull something off of that and get it done. So, on Saturday, my friend came over with his AWESOME TOOLS OF EXTREME MANLINESS~! and we got a lot of stuff done, viz.:

1. Swapped the futon and the recliner.


2. Built and hung a small shelf in the living room for the telephone (finally out of the Girl's reach! Wooohooo!)


3. Those cabinet latches? They're on many of the cabinets now. Not all of them, because some cabinets still need to be straightened out... but most of them.

I like making lists.
More lists of goals later. And, I'm redesigning the blog again. Just because. :-)

The Budding Artist

 

Hooray for washable crayons! She also got the door and a couple of tables before we realized what had happened. Yeeks. 

There is a storm brewing...

 

Here is a picture taken from our driveway, showing the contrasting Tucson skies with a storm only seconds away. I was getting wet less than a minute after I snapped this photo. 


This photo is taken from the same place, with me facing the other direction.


Another photo, taken aiming over the roof towards the west.

Train keeps a-rollin'

So I am leaving the hospital after visiting the Little Man today, and I realize I failed to take chicken out of the freezer for dinner this evening. No problem, I'll just call home on the cell phone and ask my wife to do it.

*ring*
"We're sorry, the number you have dialed is not in service."

What? I try again, this time adding the area code. Same result.

Looks like the phone company shut off our phone due to a lack of payment. I check the records, and sure enough, it looks like we haven't paid since May, but missed the disconnect notice in that huge stack of mail that we got while we were up in Phoenix.

I call the phone company, and explain the situation. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to get the amount due reduced, as the phone is already disconnected. Poop.

We had enough to cover the past due amount, but now we have just over $13.00 in the ol' checking account to get us through until the 19th. And, the car needs gas. Crap.

I hate being flat broke. At least we're broke with a telephone, but still... this sucks. Something's going to happen soon where we will not be able to get something done because of this, and I'm nervous.

Week 32 (8/6/06-8/12/06) Goals

I'm so out of it, I had to get a calendar and count weeks to see where exactly I was in the year. Well, it's been a crazy month, what can I say?

I'm not going to try and play catch-up for all the scripture reading that I missed, at least not immediately. I'll have some time here and there to fill in the gaps, but I'm not going to kill myself reading and reading and reading, either.

So, without further ado, here is what I would like to get accomplished this week:

1. Read D&C 124-132


2. Read Helaman 4 - 3 Nephi 3 (Summer Book of Mormon project)

And on a less spiritual level:

3. Take an inventory of the foodstuffs that we have around the house. Our refrigerator and freezer are actually whiteboard-marker safe(!!!), so perhaps keeping a list of what we have frozen is in order, especially now that we have a lot of stuff in there and it's easy to lose track.


4. Get all of our bills together.


5. The sound from the television seems to be inconsistent -- well, more inconsistent than usual. Since we don't have cable anymore, I can't call Cox and ask them for a box that I can run between the cable and the TV... so, it's time to figure out how to work it so the TV sound comes through the stereo, at minimal cost. So, either Radio Shack has something, or I'm kludging something together out of parts.

We'll see how things go. I'm probably going to change my blog around somehow, or at least put up a website to go with it, as some of the things on here I feel would be better suited in a website environment.

Yikes

OK, so in a couple of days I'm going to get back to goal-setting... been home a week now and everything has somewhat gone by the wayside. The routine is starting to get better, though, and I'll have more time to get things done, although it seems I'm spending a lot of time on the computer. Of course, that could be the whole "working from home" thing -- it seems like a lot of time is getting spent in this room.

So, the bills are starting to roll in for our son's hospital stay. I hope hope hope that our insurance will cover it, and if not, the financial aid from the hospital (PCH) will cover it. We got a letter from the air transport company, and even though they said our insurance would cover it, or the financial aid would cover it, it's still a bill for $21,000 in the mail, and geez -- I don't think I've ever paid that much for anything. College was cheaper.

So, our fingers are crossed. The collection agencies are calling, and we're behind. It's wonderful watching all of our money just... dry up. Yeah.

Holy poop on a stick am I tired

You would think that we've got it pretty easy... I get to work from home, we spend some time each day visiting the hospital, my wife's main responsibility is to express milk, and the Relief Society is helping us out with meals. That's it... that's the list.

But man oh man are we beat. The Girl is cutting some more teeth and refuses to be comforted, medicated, or anything else. It's been nothing but straight whining and crying for the past day and a half, and Mommy's nerves are starting to wear thin, to the point where I think we're all going to hit a wall here if this keeps up much longer. None of us are sleeping well, and since the Girl has got a runny nose and is very hot to the touch, we can't leave her with a babysitter for us to get a break. Hopefully things will clear up today or tomorrow where we can go dump her off somewhere so we can relax. Knowing my wife, though, she's not going to want to sleep, she's going to want to take advantage of that time to do stuff. When the Girl is sleeping, I'm going to instruct her to take a nap as well. Because if she doesn't nap, and then starts talking about how tired she is, I'm going to lose it. I know how the conversation is going to go: "Please sleep." "I can't, I have too much to do." "No, you have two responsibilities, and one is to rest, please rest." "I can't rest, I have too much on my mind..." ARGH. I'm dreading it already.

Yesterday had to return a book to the library, so I quickly checked to see if there were any Agatha Christie novels that I hadn't read, so I picked up "Cards on the Table", which I knew had a very interesting plot, and I wanted to see how it would go. I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed, as one of the main clues was a bridge scoresheet, and since I have no knowledge of bridge whatsoever, it put me at somewhat of a disadvantage in solving the crime. But other than that, it was a good book.